Business or life coaches provide one-on-one coaching to help people develop strategies for their life and within their work place. APSA members can use Professional Development (PD) funds, Policy AD 10.11, to claim coaching expenses.
Looking for a coach?
Check these ones out. Not only do they provide coaching services, they've also presented at previous APSA events.
- Kathy Dornan, Revealing the Authentic Leader Within series
- Dr. Susan Biali, Live the Life you Love
Want more information?
Read on to see how Montreal employee Celia Ostroff benefited from the council of a coach when she considered quitting her job.
15 Apr 2012
When the Job Seems Too Much
Workplace professionals can now get tailored advice from a business coach
By Philip Fine, Postmedia News
MONTREAL— Celia Ostroff knew she had to quit her job. The arts administrator was working long hours, and criticisms from her boss, no matter how much Ostroff would accomplish, would not abate.
The pace of her projects also never let up: “I was overproducing and then that would become the expectation. I was feeling exhausted,” said Ostroff.
Her tasks included organizing many public, off-hour events and her work was overtaking her personal life so that she could not make plans with friends. “I needed to find a new job.” So she booked an appointment with a business coach, Robert Mcfadden, whom she hoped would help point her in a new direction — perhaps a new career.
Mcfadden, a coach with an arts and technology background, first got Ostroff to talk about the job she planned to quit. He also asked her all kinds of questions: How many emails was she dealing with? How did her boss’s criticisms make her feel? After four sessions, they had put together some strategies for setting limits on overtime; she also began to see that she and her boss believed in the organization and possessed the same goals.
The visit to a business coach to find a new job actually made her believe again in her old job. “I fundamentally liked the job. I was just finding it untenable.”
Mcfadden got Ostroff to implement a few changes, such as giving her colleagues firm and clear limits on her tasks and not seeing criticisms as a personal attack. Her boss and colleagues eventually accepted the boundaries she established and now she is enjoying her work again.
Business coaches are finding a niche in the business world, not only by providing strategies for easing difficult working conditions but in helping companies groom a recently promoted employee. They are spending face time, as well, with company executives, making the top a little less lonely and providing leaders with a confidante who can help them better navigate political waters.